The Babe in the Bundle
by Grac3
Summary: Part eight of the Loki and the Doctor series. In the wake of tragedy, Loki finds himself needing a friend. Yet the Doctor's solution is to take him back to a place he never thought he would ever see again. Threeshot. Episode tag: Dark World / Post-Father's Day.
1. Preservation Act 1

**Spoilers for: Thor: The Dark World and The Sound of Drums**

 **Disclaimer: Don't own Thor or Doctor Who**

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Chapter 1 – Preservation Act 1

It had taken five minutes for his magic to trash his room.

It had taken another half hour for him to stop screaming.

Now he sat, huddled, next to his bed, staring blankly at the golden grid before him, a thousand and one 'what ifs' raging in his head.

He didn't have the energy to wipe away the tears on his cheeks. His mind was entirely blank, barely registering anything.

That was, until there was a wheezing sound somewhere off to his left.

His lips curled up into a humourless smile, the glaze fading from his eyes. He turned his head to see the TARDIS materialise, and land with its usual _thump_. He quickly altered his illusion so that it hid the ship from the view of the guards. A moment later, the door of the ship was opened, and a familiar Doctor stepped out.

"Loki?"

Loki's heart dropped. It was not the Doctor who had been to visit him as a child; not the Doctor he had hoped for. Rather, it was the one who had got him into this mess in the first place: the one who had left him in the Sanctuary.

But, a voice in his head asked, hadn't he asked the Doctor to do that?

"Loki… What happened?"

Loki blinked up at him and deadpanned, "You do not know?"

"All I know is that I got this." The Doctor pulled out a leather case from the inside of his pocket. He flipped it open to reveal the message written inside:

 _Dungeons on Asgard. Help me. Loki_.

"How did you even send it?"

Loki looked up to the Doctor's face. "I didn't mean to."

He reached into the back pocket of his trousers, pulling out his own psychic paper. He opened it, to see the same message fading away on the paper.

"Where did you get that?"

The Doctor marched over to Loki, kneeling down beside him. He pulled a strange device, long and thin and metal, from his pocket and pointed it at Loki's psychic paper. He pressed a button on the device's side, and it made a strange buzzing sound.

"Hmm," the Doctor pocketed the device.

He reached forward with his own psychic paper and touched his to Loki's. Loki gasped as a strange, almost electrical, sensation radiated up his arm. He pulled his hand back; the Doctor did the same.

"It's the same piece…" the Doctor murmured, stuffing the psychic paper back into his inside pocket.

"Doctor?"

The voice was female, and coming from the direction of the TARDIS. The Doctor and Loki turned towards the ship as a young girl stepped out from it. Loki felt a pang of guilt at the sight of her. Indeed, the Doctor had never wanted to abandon him in the Sanctuary.

He had done it for her. And Loki had let him.

"Oh. Hello." Rose gave him an awkward smile and waved at him. He nodded in acknowledgement.

"You must be… Loki." Rose walked over to him as the Doctor stood up. Rose took his place by Loki's side. "I'm Rose."

Rose held out her hand. Loki shook it.

"I assure you, I am not in the habit of making such first impressions."

Rose shrugged. "This is not the weirdest first impression I've ever had, believe me." She chuckled, and Loki even felt a small smile pull at the corners of his own lips.

"Loki, why did you send me that message?"

Loki turned from Rose to the Doctor. "I told you: I did not know that I had."

The Doctor pursed his lips and folded his arms over his chest. "It's not impossible, if you've already created a psychic link with the paper. I'm guessing you got this from a future me?"

Loki nodded. "But how would I have sent a message unknowingly?"

The Doctor shrugged. "It's not unheard of, if it's a message that the person really needs to get across. The question is, why did you really need to get a cry for help across to me? What has happened?"

"Yeah, why are you in prison?" Rose asked, turning back to Loki. Loki opened his mouth to reply, but the Doctor interrupted him.

"No, it's nothing to do with that. He's in prison because of an attempted invasion of Earth."

Rose's eyes went wide. "You tried to invade Earth?"

Loki winced at her harsh tone.

"When was this?"

"2012, it's not important. He wasn't exactly himself."

Loki looked up at the Doctor. "You know that already?"

"Last time I saw you, the Mind Stone had no effect on you. Your eyes were green instead of blue."

"And what colour are they now?"

Rose leaned nearer to Loki's face. Loki fought the urge to move away.

"Maybe… a mixture? More like a sort of… teal?" She turned to the Doctor as if asking him for confirmation. He nodded.

"You've broken its hold. But not completely."

Loki gave him a small smile. "It was not I who broke the Mind Stone's power over me."

The Doctor's brow furrowed. "Then who did?"

"I cannot tell you."

The Doctor nodded in understanding. "But can you tell me why you called me here?"

Loki shrank back, leaning his back against the wall, all posture forgotten. He gulped nervously and closed his eyes.

"The Queen is dead."

"The Queen?"

"I'm sorry."

Loki barely heard the words from his companions' mouths. There was a moment of silence before Rose spoke again.

"The Queen… She was your mother, wasn't she?"

Loki grit his teeth. He opened his eyes to look up at her. "No. I was not her son, and she was not my mother. My mother left me for dead on a barren wasteland because I was nothing more than a runt."

The Doctor rolled his shoulders back, fury rolling in the depths of his stormy eyes.

"No."

Loki looked up at him, his brow furrowing. "Odin told me the story."

The Doctor shook his head. "Odin told you the version of the story that he knows. He does not know everything."

Loki chuckled humourlessly. "And you do?"

"There are stories about you which have spread further than Asgard and Jötunheim. Stories which go beyond the Battle of New York."

"And you are a collector of such stories?"

"You hear a lot when you travel around the universe like I do."

"And what have you heard?"

The Doctor's lips quirked, his blue eyes beginning to glisten with excitement. "That's just another perk of travelling around the universe like I do. I don't have to just tell you."

The Doctor practically skipped over to the TARDIS, pulling the key from his pocket and unlocking the door in one swift movement. Rose got to her feet, offering her hand to Loki to help him up. He declined, pushing himself to his feet. And if he wiped his eyes clean when she turned away from him to walk to the TARDIS, she didn't have a clue.

"Where are we going?" Rose asked as she and Loki entered the TARDIS and closed the door behind them. She wandered over to the control panel and jumped up onto it, sitting on a flat surface, away from any buttons.

The Doctor shot Loki an apologetic look. "Jötunheim."

The smile melted from Loki's face.

"I'm sorry?"

"Jötunheim," the Doctor repeated.

Loki's hands clenched by his sides. "Why?" he growled.

"What's wrong with Jötunheim?" Rose asked innocently, looking between Loki and the Doctor.

"It is my home realm," Loki explained through gritted teeth. "And they will kill me on sight for what I have done to them."

"Have you forgotten about the TARDIS, Loki? It also travels in time."

"We are travelling through time?" Loki blinked.

The Doctor nodded.

"To when?"

"All will become apparent."

"Or you could just tell me now."

The Doctor grinned mischievously. "Now where would the fun in that be?"


	2. Preservation Act 2

**Spoilers for: Thor: The Dark World and The Sound of Drums**

 **Disclaimer: Don't own Thor or Doctor Who**

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Chapter 2 – Preservation Act 2

"You might want to put something warm on though," the Doctor said, practically flying around the console pressing buttons and pulling levers. "Rose, you know where the wardrobe is. Escort our guest and find some fur or something."

"Fur?" Rose asked, her voice high and incredulous. The Doctor looked up from the console with an innocent look on his face.

"It's Fernet fur. You don't have to kill them to take their fur. It's like sheep and their wool. Perfectly ethical."

"Alright," Rose agreed, sounding sceptical. She gestured for Loki to follow her and headed for the door on the far side of the control room.

The strange winding corridors looked exactly as they had the last time he had been in here: browns and yellows covered the walls, and exposed pipes hummed as they passed.

They walked in companionable, if slightly awkward, silence, and were already three corridors away from the control room when Rose finally looked over her shoulder at Loki.

"I don't suppose you know why the Doctor wants to take you back to Jötunheim?"

Loki shook his head. "I have absolutely no idea."

Rose nodded and turned away. "He says he's met you before."

Loki gave her a humourless smile. "Our history is a complicated one."

Rose chuckled. "I met the Doctor when he was in the basement of the shop where I worked, and the mannequins were coming to life and killing people. I thought I was going to die, and he just came out of nowhere, took my hand, and told me to run.

"Since then, I've seen my own world burn, I've met aliens pretending to be ghosts, stopped an invasion of Earth after my family thought I'd been dead for a year, and been hit on by my dad who died when I was a baby. You really think it can get more complicated than that?"

"I do."

Rose stopped when they reached a certain door and pressed her palms against it, ready to push it open. She looked over her shoulder and shot him a mischievous look.

"Try me."

She pushed the door open and stepped inside. Loki followed her, and his eyes widened at the sight of what lay beyond: shelves upon shelves of clothes, with no rhyme or reason to detect as to their organisation. It seemed to go on forever, much like the library.

A wardrobe not far from the door was open, with eight different outfits lined up neatly inside it. Loki recognised three of them, from the younger versions of the Doctor he had met. They looked as though they had not been touched for hundreds of years.

Loki forced himself to look away.

"When I first met the Doctor," he explained, "he was much older than he is right now."

Rose looked up at him. She had been inspecting a long, thick black coat that was hung on a mannequin, rolling the fabric of the sleeve between her forefinger and her thumb.

"What do you mean?"

Loki wandered over to the Doctor's wardrobe, staring at the empty space which, one day, would hold the outfit of his Doctor.

"He came to me when I was a boy. He told me that I would meet him many times throughout my life, but we would meet out of order."

"Out of order?"

Loki nodded and turned away from the wardrobe.

"I have seen the Doctor very young, and I have seen him very, very old. Likewise, he has seen me much younger than I am now. And he will likely seen me much older than I am now, if he hasn't already."

Rose dropped the sleeve of the coat. "How many times have you met the Doctor?"

"This is the eighth."

Rose blinked, her brows raising.

"His visits are not frequent."

Rose slowly made her way passed the mannequin and deeper into the closet. Loki followed her, but she didn't speak again until she had found a whole row of thick, furry coats and begun to look through them.

"So… you've seen what he was like? Before?"

"Before?"

Rose bit her lip. "Before the Time War. Before Gallifrey was destroyed."

Loki looked away from Rose, turning his gaze to the coats. "I have."

Rose plucked a coat from the rack and tried it on. It was far too big, the sleeves coming down far beyond her hands and the ends dragging on the ground. She scowled and returned it to its hanger.

Loki found a much slimmer one. He slipped it from its hanger and held it up to himself. When he pulled it on, he found it too tight to do up. He reasoned, however, that it didn't really matter if he was exposed to the freezing temperatures of Jötunheim, his monstrous blood pumping through him as it was. He slid the now empty hanger along the rack and continued the search for a coat that would fit Rose.

"Was he…"

Rose cut off abruptly. Loki looked over at her. There was a battle raging in her eyes as her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip. She sighed exasperatedly. Loki decided to help her.

"Happy?"

Rose blushed. Her gaze remained fixed on the coat before her, but she nodded all the same.

Loki slid another coat along the rack.

"I'm not sure."

"How can you not be sure?"

"I have only met him thrice before Gallifrey was destroyed. Two of those times, there was hardly time to gauge whether or not he was happy."

"And the other time?"

Loki looked over at Rose. She was peering up at him through the corner of her eye, her hands stilled on one of the coats.

Loki sighed. "The other time, he seemed happier. But he had other issues. In my experience, there is always something to impede one's happiness, the Doctor's included."

There was a pause for a heartbeat, before Rose started laughing.

"You're a cheery one!"

Loki couldn't help but smile a little. He saw a flash of material out of the corner of his eye, and looked over to Rose; she was clad in a coat similar to the one he was wearing, though she could do hers up.

He gave her a small bow. "You look lovely."

Rose chuckled and curtseyed in response. "Come on, let's go back. Check he hasn't blown anything up."

Loki made to follow Rose back to the control room. "Is that a regular occurrence?"

Rose shrugged one shoulder. "More regular than I'd like."

They soon found themselves back in the control room, where the Doctor was sitting on the sofa; he jumped up as they walked in.

"Great! You're gonna need those. Rose, looking beautiful as ever."

"Oh, shut up!"

The Doctor laughed, but Loki could see the sincerity in his eyes, fast as it disappeared.

The conversation ended when the control room was filled with the sound of the TARDIS landing. Loki's smile slipped from his face. He was suddenly filled with dread colder than the world awaiting them outside could ever be. He stared over at the door and silently hoped that the Doctor would change his mind and that he would never have to venture out onto that wasteland ever again.

So distracted was he that he didn't notice the Doctor approaching him. The Time Lord was holding a chain with a key on the end out to him. Loki took it as Rose looped an identical chain around her neck. The Doctor was already wearing one.

"What is this?" Loki asked as he slipped the chain on.

"It's a TARDIS key, with a slight perception filter. Anyone who looks at us won't notice us. We won't necessarily be invisible, but we'll be able to pass people without them asking any awkward questions. Or any questions, really. We'll be able to see each other, though, because we're all wearing them.

"Come on, then." The Doctor gestured towards the door.

Loki's heart pounded against his ribcage. He couldn't think that there was anywhere worse than Jötunheim, not even his cell; not even now that he no longer had the occasional company of his mother's illusions.

Except she wasn't his mother. His real mother had abandoned him and was probably long dead by now. He had met with Laufey many times before he had committed patricide, and the king had never had a queen by his side. Then again, just because he was the son of the king didn't mean that he was the son of the queen as well.

He winced at his dark thoughts. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he was brought abruptly back to reality by a hand clamping down on his shoulder.

"I promise you, there's a reason I brought you here."

Loki looked up at the Doctor. His eyes were soft and sincere, but Loki couldn't help but remain sceptical.

"There was a reason you took me to the Master."

The Doctor's eyes wavered, but only for a moment. "I was young and naïve then. I didn't know the horrors that faced me."

"Gallifrey?"

The Doctor drew in a deep breath through his nose and nodded stiffly. "Gallifrey."

Loki gulped. "You truly believe that this will help me?"

"I do."

Loki sighed, looking over at the door again. He hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

The three left the TARDIS together. Rose gasped as soon as they stepped outside, pulling her coat tighter around herself. Loki envied her reaction in that moment, for he felt absolutely fine. He looked down at his hands, breathing a sigh of relief to see that they weren't turning blue. The Doctor closed the door of the TARDIS behind them.

"Now, if memory serves me, it should be just down here."

The Doctor pointed straight ahead of them, down the icy corridor in which they had landed.

Loki recognised this place as the inside of Laufey's palace. The walls were made of thick ice, stretching far above their heads to the ceiling. All was blue and white and just that little bit transparent. It was cold and unwelcoming, uncomfortable and foreboding. Loki was disgusted at the little part of him that felt like it was at home.

The inside of the palace was peaceful and quiet, though it was clear that, outside, there was anything but peace. Sounds floated in from the outside: the clanging of swords and the shouting of orders, and the screams of the injured and the dying.

"What's going on?" Rose asked, looking up at the Doctor.

The Doctor looked grim. "There's a war going on. A war that the Jotuns are about to lose."

Loki faltered. "You brought me to this day?"

The Doctor turned back, looking him straight in the eye.

"I did."

Loki took a breath. "Of all the days to which you could have brought me, you choose this one? What do you hope to achieve, Doctor?"

"Look, I know I haven't given you much reason to trust me in the past, but I promise, this time I'm doing the right thing."

Loki shook his head. "You have given me plenty of reason to trust you in the past, Doctor. You just haven't done it yet. I trust you now because of the man you will become, regardless of the man you have been in the past. But this day? This day is a betrayal of that trust."

"Not when you understand why I have brought you here. You just said that you trusted me. The last time that I saw you, you were not much older than a child. Now, you are. Now, you have been forced to grow up in war.

"I have seen children grow up in war. I have seen how it has affected them. I have tried to help you in the past, and I know now that I was wrong in my methods. But this time, I am sure that I can help you. I am sure that by the time you are back in your cell, you will no longer feel as alone as you have felt since you learned the truth about yourself."

Loki took a breath through his nose. "Fine. Then show me, Doctor. I will believe you when I see for myself what you are talking about."

The Doctor nodded stiffly, turned, and marched on.


	3. Face to Face

**Spoilers for: Thor: The Dark World and The Sound of Drums**

 **Disclaimer: Don't own Thor or Doctor Who**

 **UPDATE 07/06/2016:** So a few mistakes were pointed out to me that I have now fixed. Hopefully it should flow better now!

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Chapter 3 – Face to Face

The Doctor and Rose marched onwards, while Loki looked up at the high vaulted ceiling. There were patterns and stories carved into the ice, tales of times long passed that he should have grown up hearing. Instead, he had been brought up with the tales of Odin and Odin's father.

How different would it have been to have grown up on Jötunheim? To be the monster he had been brought up to fear and despise?

He was distracted from his thoughts by a bright flash of blue light glinting off of the ice from somewhere behind him. Loki wheeled around and, to his horror, saw a familiar figure kneeling on the ground.

The blonde, insane, Master was frantically pressing buttons on his strange black bracelet and muttering feverishly under his breath.

"That's not right. Not supposed to be here. Supposed to be on Gallifrey. Got to get to Gallifrey."

"Master?"

The Master's head shot up and he stared straight at Loki. Before the trickster's eyes, his skin disappeared to reveal his bright blue skull. Loki cringed, and the tiny part of his mind that was still under the control of the Mind Stone awoke. It took almost all he had to push it back down.

The Master grinned, pressed a final button on his bracelet, and disappeared in another flash of blue light. Loki reasoned it would only take the madman a few moments to turn up in his old cell.

"Loki!"

The Doctor's voice floated to him from around the corner at the end of the corridor.

"I'm coming!" he called. He sped up to catch up with them as they waited for him just around the corner.

"It's not far now."

Rose looked up at Loki for a moment, but Loki ignored her. He carried on after the Doctor, heading further down the corridor and trying to forget about his pounding head.

The corridor ended with a long staircase made entirely of ice. Their shoes clapped on the ground as they descended the staircase into darkness. Loki tried to keep his panic under control; the last time he had been taken down a staircase like this, he hadn't seen anyone he loved for months.

Once they reached the bottom, they found themselves in a large round room, the ceiling held up by pillars set around the edges. The pillars were set ten feet or so from the walls, creating a corridor along the walls somewhat separate from the central arena which was illuminated by a column of faint blue light streaming down from a skylight cut into the ceiling.

Beautiful though it was, Loki couldn't help but feel a kind of trepidation.

"What happened here, Doctor?" he whispered, staring straight ahead into the middle of the room.

"It's not what happened; it's what's going to happen."

Loki opened his mouth to protest the Doctor's vagueness, when a Jotun ran into the room from a door on the other side of the arena, panting loudly and clutching at her chest. She slowed down as she reached the centre of the room and looked furtively over her shoulder.

Satisfied that there was no one there, she lowered herself to her knees, and pulled her arms away from herself.

Only then was it made clear that she had been holding something: a small bundle of grey cloth, wrapped around something – wrapped around some _one_.

Loki's heart pounded wildly in his chest.

The woman lay the baby on the ground, a smile tugging at her lips despite the fear in her eyes.

"Hush now, little one," she cooed to the crying child. She brushed the cloth away slightly, and the three hiding in the shadows could see the blue skin of the child. "You'll be okay."

Loki backed away, wishing that he could vanish into thin air when his back hit the wall. How could this woman, the woman who had birthed him, act so loving towards him when she was abandoning him, leaving him to die?

A yell sounded from somewhere above. The woman looked up at the skylight and winced.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, looking down at the child once more. Then she got up and ran as fast as she could, back the way that she had come.

She didn't look back.

Rose walked up to Loki, who nearly jumped out of his glamoured skin when she touched his arm.

"Is that you?" she murmured. Loki didn't look at her; his gaze was fixed on the child. He nodded dumbly.

"So that was your mum?"

"It was."

"She just left you?"

"She did."

"Why?"

Loki barked a humourless laugh. "You've seen what a Frost Giant is supposed to look like. I was a runt: useful to no one except Odin as a pawn to do with as he wished. My birthright," Loki winced, "was to die."

The Doctor rounded on Loki, a thunderous look on his face. "Who told you that?"

Loki blinked. "The Allfather. He told me of what happened here this day, and how my mother left me to die."

The Doctor grit his teeth, his jaw twitching, then marched off towards the child, leaving his two companions in the darkness of the corridor.

The Doctor leaned down over the child, who slept on soundly, unaware of what was happening around him, and plucked something from the bundle of cloth. Straightening himself up, he made his way back over to Loki and Rose.

The Doctor thrust the thing he had retrieved in Loki's face: a piece of paper. Confused, Loki took it, unfolded it, and read what was written upon it.

 _Please do not think me cruel for leaving my child here. I have seen the fighting, and I know that Jötunheim will not win this war. I fear my child will not survive in the new order. Perhaps if the Jotuns were to win, he would have a better chance; I would be able to protect him, for no one would harm the son of Laufey even if he is small._

 _I know he will undoubtedly be picked up by an Asgardian, but I implore you to not kill him. Take care of him. Give him a better life than I can. Protect him from the big, bad wolf. His name is Loki. And when he is old enough, give him this note. Tell him why I did what I did._

 _Thank you._

Loki's hands began to shake as he looked back up at the Doctor. "What is this?"

"Your mother left this with you when she left you," the Doctor explained, his voice low. "For whoever found you."

Loki blinked, his eyes stinging. "Wh-"

The Doctor placed a hand on Loki's shoulder. "She wanted someone to find you. She left you so that you could live a better life than the one you would have had here. Odin was wrong: your birth right was not to die – it was to live, just like everyone else's is. Your mother loved you. No matter what anyone else tells you."

Loki gulped, looking back down at the note.

"It… it was my mother who named me. Not Odin." He looked up, over the Doctor's shoulders and down the darkened corridor, down which his mother had disappeared. "I wish I could meet her."

As he said the words, however, a dizziness rushed over him. He swayed on the spot, his vision blurring for a moment, but he blinked it away.

"We don't have enough time for that. We've got to get you home."

Loki felt a pang at those words. "I don't have a home."

"Really?" the Doctor smiled. "Cause I think you've got three."

Loki's brow furrowed. "Three?"

The Doctor nodded. "The TARDIS will always welcome you."

Loki frowned. "But you won't take me with you."

The Doctor shook his head. "I can't mess with the timelines. Not yet, anyway." The Doctor winked, and Loki felt a painful tug at his heart that felt strangely like hope.

"Come on, we've got to get you back." The Doctor patted him on the shoulder and made his way back to the staircase.

Loki turned, still clutching the letter in his hands. "Do you not have to return the letter?"

The Doctor regarded the note in Loki's hands for a moment. He shook his head. "You said Odin told you your birth right was to die?"

Loki winced at the painful memory and nodded.

The Doctor shrugged. "I don't think even he would have lied about something like that. He hasn't seen that note."

"Then what do I do with it?"

The Doctor met his gaze. "It does say that you were to have it when you were old enough. I think you're old enough now, don't you? Keep it. Use it as a reminder. You're not worthless, Loki. Don't let anyone tell you that you are."

Loki bit his lip and looked back down at the handwriting scrawled across the paper. "She'll never replace Frigga."

The Doctor walked a step towards him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "And she doesn't have to. Not unless you want her to."

Loki blinked, nodded, and the Doctor removed his hand. Rose fell into step with the trickster as they made their way back to the TARDIS; he jumped when Rose linked her arm with his. He looked down at her. She was looking up at him with a small smile on her face, and something akin to understanding in her eyes.

He kept the letter firmly in his grip.

"It's okay to miss her, you know."

Loki looked away. "She wasn't my mother. Not really."

"That doesn't matter. If it feels real…" Rose looked down at the ground, her eyes glazing over.

"I saw my dad die about a week ago."

"I'm sorry."

Rose shook her head. "Don't be. It happened when I was a kid. Didn't know him my entire life; just the stories my mum told me. And it turns out most of them were… exaggerated, to say the least. But the Doctor… He took me back so I could see him. So I could say goodbye. And even though it turns out my mum had been telling me porkies my whole life, making him out to be this great man, and when I met him, he was anything but… it still hurt, to have to lose him."

They lapsed into silence. Loki pondered on what Rose had said. The Doctor had taken her back to see her father one last time before he died. He had gave her the chance to say goodbye. He looked over at the back of the Time Lord, a question forming on his lips.

"Doctor?" he called.

The Time Lord turned round. "Yeah?"

"Could you take me back to see her? To see Frigga?"

A dark look crossed the Doctor's face. "Last time I did that for someone, it didn't work out all too well." He glanced at Rose quickly, and Loki felt her bristle with guilt.

Loki felt a sting of disappointment, but it was short lived as he had another idea.

"What about to her funeral? They neglected to convey the news of her death to me until after they had held her funeral. I would have liked to go. To have the chance to say goodbye."

The Doctor stared at him for a long moment, before his lips quirked slightly. "Okay. That, I think I can do."

Loki grinned, following the Doctor with eagerness as they continued on their way back to the TARDIS.

They turned into the corridor where the ship sat waiting for them… and Loki was blinded by a bright white light and a flash of pain shooting through his temple.

He cried out in pain, his knees giving way beneath him.

"Loki?" He heard Rose cry, but everything was white and pain. When he opened his eyes, he was on the floor, leaning against the wall of the corridor with his legs stretched out before him. Rose was leaning over him, concern etched onto her face.

"What happened?" she looked up at the Doctor as the Time Lord sprinted over and hooked his hands beneath his armpits, heaving the trickster to his feet. Loki groaned as another wave of pain washed over him.

"He's been maintaining an illusion over time as well as space. It takes a toll on even the most powerful illusionist. We have to get him back to his own time."

Loki was vaguely aware of being dragged through the doors of the TARDIS and laid gently on the grating. As the Doctor rushed to the control panel, Rose stayed with him, kneeling by his side and placing a hand on the top of his head. Her fingers grazed his scalp, and while the action did little to soothe his pain, he was grateful all the same.

"Frigga…" he mumbled.

"That's gonna have to wait till some either time, I'm afraid. You can't stay out of your own time for long and maintain the illusion that you're still in your cell, it's taking too much of a toll on you."

Loki grit his teeth as his eyes burned beneath his eyelids. The ground began to rumble beneath them as the TARDIS took to flight.

As they flew through the time stream, Loki felt his headache begin to subside, though he wasn't sure if it was the vibrations of the ship that were soothing him or just that he was getting closer to his own time.

By the time the TARDIS landed, Loki was lying limply on the floor, in pain but too tired to move.

"Hey," he protested weakly as Rose lifted her hand away from his head. It was replaced with an arm sliding beneath his shoulders and sitting him up. He fought back a groan, blinking his eyes open. The world was still blurry, but it soon cleared. The Doctor stood on the other side of him and hauled him to his feet. He leaned heavily on the Time Lord, but tried to support as much of his own weight as he possibly could.

They lumbered over to the door, and through to the white cell beyond. The Doctor walked Loki over to his bed and sat him down upon it. Rose gave him a small smile and pushed his shoulder gently, pushing him down into a lying position.

"You should rest, Loki. And don't put up an illusion while you sleep. You'll only hurt yourself even more."

Loki bit his lip at the thought of lying there without an illusion: unprotected, like an exposed nerve. Yet his head was still pounding lightly and the magic he was using still was only making it worse. He nodded, and altered the illusion he was casting so that it only hid the Doctor, Rose, and the TARDIS.

"Sleep well," the Doctor nodded.

Rose smiled down at him. "I hope I see you again."

Loki nodded at her, and she turned away. Yet as he watched the retreating Doctor's back, he couldn't ignore the feeling gnawing at him.

"Doctor."

The Doctor looked back around at Loki.

"You said you couldn't take me from my cell."

The Doctor shook his head solemnly. "It would alter the timelines too much. No telling what could happen if you don't stay in here long enough."

"But you said 'yet'. Does that mean I leave? At some point? Do I leave this cell?"

The Doctor gave him a sad look. "Spoilers."

* * *

 **UPDATE 06/06/2016:** The next part of the Loki and the Doctor series, The Light Against the Dark, has been posted.


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